Confessions of a final year PhD student.
By Lauren Walsh, University College Cork
Figure 1: Lauren Walsh is a PhD candidate at APC Microbiome Ireland studying the effects of bacteriocins and food preservatives on the microbiome
After months of a lab colleague (it was Dave for anyone wondering) constantly asking me to write a blog, I finally gave in. What was the deciding factor that changed my mind you ask? Well as many scientists out there can relate to, I got some disappointing results from my fermentation experiment looking at the effect of antimicrobials on the gut microbiome and wanted to bang my head off a wall so I thought it might be safer to bang my head off the keyboard instead. Lately I’ve been asking myself, is a PhD worth it? Was this the right decision? Why isn’t anything working? Hopefully by the end of this blog post, I will either have convinced myself to continue my PhD or will be riding off into the sunset with my frozen stocks firmly in my back mirror.
You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. Let me take you back to four years ago, I wandered into the lab an innocent and naïve master’s student, filled with hope and enthusiasm (Figure 1). My master’s project was a six month placement in the lab where I’m doing my PhD now. This project went great, with very little disappointment if any. I even got the opportunity to publish a paper from it. When I was offered my PhD, it was a no brainer, of course I could do this for another 4 years, research is so easy. Ha! Don’t worry, I hate past me too! A little bit into my PhD, I had a few experiments not work out the way I expected. I said to myself “This is just the way science is” and “not everything is going to work straight away” and so I rallied and moved on with my projects, ultimately getting the results I hoped for. However, recently bad results have riddled my science once again, leaving me with feelings of frustration and uncertainty. But how did I go from my previous optimism, to letting bad results send me into a spiral? The best way I can explain this, is to imagine getting slapped in the face. It happens once? It hurts and you move on. It happens over and over again? It hurts a lot more and you might even ask yourself why am I letting this person slap me? That’s how I feel about science. Why am I letting myself get slapped over and over again by the hand of science? (no PhD students were harmed in the making of this analogy).
In an effort to reignite my motivation, and as part of the field research I did for this blog, I took a tour around the lab to ask PhD students and some postdocs (the ones still young enough to remember the trauma) if they have ever had similar feelings and how they bounced back. It may not come as a shock, but I was not alone in my feelings. Many others had felt the harsh betrayal of their science.
Figure 2: (a) Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm (b) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity (c) Failures are the finger posts on the road to achievement
Some thoughts included “Why me?”, “I want to quit”, “I’m an idiot”, “Why am I doing this?”. When I asked said lab colleagues what got them out of this dark head space, they said they were “too lazy to quit” and that “it’ll be over one day”. These remarks were not too comforting to me and so I embarked on a mission to visit our ever-uplifting lab manager. When I asked her the same question, she didn’t answer. She just turned around and pulled out some pieces of paper from her drawer. Written on them were inspirational quotes she found useful during her own PhD and so she kept them in case anyone needed a boost (as is common in a lab filled with PhD students). One of these inspirational quotes read “Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” This one stuck with me. Not because I was touched by its sentiment, but more because I was somewhat offended by this piece of paper questioning my courage following my long line of failures (Figure 2).
Figure 3: The rollercoaster ride that is the PhD
It then dawned on me, everyone around the lab that I’ve asked seems to agree that a PhD is not exactly a fun experience, yet we are all here every day and no one has left yet. So, what was everyone’s motivation to stay and finish their PhD? Of course, a few people’s reply was that they simply wanted to be called Doctor. Others had more practical reasons, like moving up the ladder in both industry and academia. However, one person’s response was that they enjoy the everyday challenge that a PhD brings. This was an interesting point for me because this was actually my reason for doing my own PhD in the first place. Although I enjoyed my masters, I knew a PhD would be a challenge I was eager to see if I could accomplish.
Figure 4: Wynkoop Brewery and Pool Hall, Denver, Colorado 2023
In some ways you could say the struggle was worth it. Of course, I can’t say that because I’m not finished yet and therefore still struggling. But along with the lows, I have experienced some things during my PhD that didn’t make me want to bang me head off a wall. Although a blissful memory at this point, I have actually gotten good results sporadically throughout my PhD, and those moments most definitely make up for the bad. I’ve been given the opportunity to travel all over the world to attend conferences and learn new things. For example, this past month at ISAPP in Denver, I learned I have an exceptional natural talent for pool (Figure 4).
Entering the final six months of my PhD, I am now worn down, tired and wouldn’t even recognise the feelings of hope and enthusiasm if they ran me over (please do, Figure 3). But I will be sticking out the rest of my PhD, primarily out of spite of younger me who set myself the challenge of doing a PhD.